THE QUEEN'S PEACE
THE HOME OFFICE, by Sir Frank Newsam; Allen and Unwin, English price 15/-. ECAUSE the Home Secretary is the residuary legatee among the Queen’s Ministers, it is often thought that his department is a sort of ‘rag-bag. But despite the usual British lack of logic, the functions of the Home Office are closely knit and unified. Apart from the Home Secretary’s purely secretarial function of posting up notices announcing Royal births and deaths, he has two primary duties-keeping the Queen’s Peace and carrying out the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. In addition, statute law has conferred on him certain powers and functions that relate to these duties. The Queen’s Peace covers the maintenance of law and order and the preservation of the liberties of the subject. The Prerogative of Mercy relates to the treatment of offenders. Specifically, the first function covers the police, the fire service, civil defence, child welfare, public well-being and safety, the control of aliens and naturalisation; the second includes the Royal pardon, the administration of justice, the probation service and the Prison Commission. In addition, the Home Office supervises the work for some of the social commissions of the United Nations and many tasks which roughly cover what is done by our own Internal Affairs Department. In fact, the Home Office embraces what in New Zealand are part of the functions of the following departments: Police, Prisons, Justice, Internal Affairs, External Affairs, Labour, Education and Legislative. The work is written by the Permanent Under-Secretary for the Home Department and expresses no personal opinions. Its style is clear and there is some understatement. As well as being the last word in authority, the book is easy to read. It should find its way on to the shelf of many a lawyer, as well, of course, of those interested in public administration in a law-abiding parliamentary democracy. It is to be hoped that the others of the series-in pre-paration-on the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, and so on, are equally
urbane and enlightening.
W.B.
S.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19541112.2.23.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 799, 12 November 1954, Page 15
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339THE QUEEN'S PEACE New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 799, 12 November 1954, Page 15
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